I'm Ranking, So Where's My&nbspTraffic?!

It's an old story – Boy meets Girl, Girl promises top rankings, rankings finally arrive, and Boy suddenly realizes he has no traffic. Wait, that's not quite it. Replace "Girl" with "SEO company" and "Boy" with "client" - yeah, there we go. In SEO, nothing is quite as frustrating as pouring time and money into your chosen keyword and finally breaking into the Top 10, only to find that you still have no visitors.

There are a number of possible causes for ranking without traffic - I'm going to divide them up into 3 groups:

You're Not Really Ranking

Your Keywords Don't Deliver

Your Results Don't Get Clicked

Isolating the problem is the best first step toward a solution and to making sure that your SEO efforts haven't been wasted.

(1) You're Not Really Ranking

Now that search results are increasingly being personalized, localized, saturated with ads, and otherwise moving away from the idea of one SERP for everyone, the most common issue with rankings not delivering is that everyone else isn't seeing what you're seeing. It's great for the ego to see yourself in the #1 spot, but it's not good for much more than ego if that ranking is an illusion. Here are a few reasons your ranking may not be what you think it is:

Your Rankings Are Personalized

Although personalization still only impacts a small amount of search results, it's always smart to do a sanity check. Unfortunately, shutting off personalization isn't as easy or reliable as it used to be, but there are a few steps you can take:

Your Rankings Are Localized

Technically, you could call this a form of personalization, but the local SEO portion of the algorithm is definitely a unique beast. If you have any business that's locally operated or where the search query has a local flavor, make sure to check that you're ranking outside of your region.

There are a couple of ways to sanity-check your local results. One is to tell Google you're somewhere else, using the "Change Location" feature on the left of search results:

Another option is on the analytics side. If your search traffic isn't up to your expectations, try segmenting it by country or city (as appropriate) to see what's really going on. For example, in Google Analytics, once you've selected your desired search traffic data, click on the second dimension pulldown (it should say "None"), select "Geographic", and you'll get a full list of options, including City:

Of course, internationalization can also come into play. If you did your keyword research against Google.com, but you're only ranking on Google.be (sorry, Belgium), then you've probably overestimated the size of your target market.

Your Results Are Crowded Out

The days of the 10-listing SERP are gone, and there's an increasing issue on Google and Bing where the prevalence of paid search, local search, image results, video results, real-time results, news results, and other listings outside of the top 10 means that "pure" organic listings can be all but crowded out. Consider this sample search for "pizza place" here in my home-town of Chicago:

The purple line represents the "fold" on my 1280x1024 screen setting. Notice where the top 3 organic results are? If you're not ranking locally on this SERP, you've got nothing.

(2) Your Keywords Don't Deliver

The next most likely culprit is that you just didn't do your keyword research very well, or those numbers turned out not to be very reliable. There are a couple of variations of this problem:

Your Keyword Volume Is Low

Assuming you did your homework, the unfortunate truth is that most keyword research tools rely on Google's numbers, and Google's numbers aren't always accurate, especially as you dive into the long tail. Even worse, the numbers can say different things depending on how you slice and dice them.

For example, I have a site that ranks pretty well for "website checklist". If I looked at Google's numbers, I'd see 8,100 total monthly searches (global). Most of this is broad-match, though – looking at exact-match cuts that to less than 10% of the traffic:

So, if I had expected ranking on this exact phrase to be a traffic boon, I might've been disappointed. Many more people are searching for variants or longer-tail phrases that contain those keywords.

Your Keyword Doesn't Match Intent

This issue cuts a bit into section (3) below, but I consider it first and foremost a keyword-research problem. Let's say that, by some miracle, you manage to rank in the Top 3 for "apple" and that you're an online store that sells bulk fruit. While some people who query "apple" may be looking to buy apples, most of them are looking for Apple the company, Apple products, Apple Vacations, etc. If that ranking "victory" had cost you thousands (or millions) of dollars, you wouldn't feel so victorious when no one searching that phrase actually wanted to buy apples. You could've done a lot more for less with some action-oriented 2-word and 3-word phrases (like "buy apples online").

(3) Your Results Don't Get Clicked

Finally, it's important to remember that ranking is just the first part of getting search traffic. People have to actually click on your search listing. It's traditionally tough to get click-through data on organic SERPs, other than relying on gross stats on CTR by ranking. Fortunately, Google Webmaster Tools is starting to provide more of that data (under "Your site on the web" > "Search queries"):

So, what could make an otherwise perfectly good search result unclickable? There are a couple of major culprits (in addition to the searcher intent issue mentioned earlier):

Your Listing Just Looks Spammy

You've tried so hard to rank, that you forgot about the human element, and you ended up with a search results that looks something like this (generated with the Snippet Optimization Tool):

Would you click on that? Ranking is only half the battle.

Your Competitors Are Winning

This is a topic that gets discussed much more on the PPC side, but sometimes you're just getting outclassed. Maybe you're ranking, but the rest of the Top 10 is being dominated by big brands, great copywriting, great offers, etc. Make sure to know what you're up against.

Similarly, be aware of any ORM issues. For example, let's say you rank #1 for your chosen keyword, but the #2 spot is "Your Brand Scam" or something to that effect. Even if that listing is below you, it's going to make people think twice about your company and your link. Search rankings aren't isolated and people make decisions based on cues from the rest of the SERP.

So, Now What Do You Do?

While it's good to be aware of these issues, ranking without getting the traffic you expected isn't usually a lost cause. It's time to regroup, dig deep, and really find out why the numbers don't match up. You may learn a lesson in where your real audience is and what they're searching for, and you can use that to improve your overall SEO strategy. In many cases, ranking for one term is going to boost your chances to rank for related terms (you've still got good content and links), so you may just need a slight shift in strategy. Figure out exactly what went wrong, and take it as a learning experience.

That's my way of working. Instead of betting on new horses (keywords), i bet on already winning horses. Here is what i do:

1. Go to Google Analytics

2. Determine all those keywords which are relevant to your products and which are helping in getting at least one conversion/transaction/visit . Download them and determine where you rank for them at present.

3. If not in top 10, then get in top 10. Often such keywords are easy to rank for (long tail or branded). So you should not face much problem. These are the money keywords which you can't find with any ease through any keyword tool and google will show no traffic almost all the time. Google adwords report like search terms report is another good way to find profitable keywords. Since seo is such a time consuming process, it always make sense to test your keywords at least primary keywords through PPC or anlayze their potential through analytics before you invest your time and money. If you do the cost benefit anlaysis, you will find that testing keywords is always much cheaper than ranking high for wrong keywords in SEO.

Glad to see some people discussing the value of PPC for SEO research! In fact, I'm working on an SEOMoz post about this. I feel like there's a pretty big camp of SEO purists who still see PPC as a waste of time, or aren't taking advantage of it for comprehensive & accurate research.

Couldn't agree more! PPC is the perfect strategy to test and measure keywords, markets, competition, headlines, CTR, etc., before investing a lot of money and time in a full SEO campaign. Much more cost effective to test and tune with PPC first. Glad to see others agree here.

I saw point (3) over December, and it's pretty depressing. Keyword "Timex", consistantly on page one for the period fluctuating between position 2 and 3, and the keyword has traffic volume. Google's External Keyword tool estimates 74000 queries in the UK. I've got an Analytics screen grab (SEOMoz - why can't I drop an image in here?!) which you'd all find horrifying.

My expectations? Given that we're talking around 2500 searches a day I thought slot 2 would be worth 500-1000 clicks a day.

The reality? 181 visits for the whole month. 5 a day. Great.

I concluded (feel free to contradict me here) that an actual brand that you do not own doesn't carry significant value as the searchers intent is to locate the official source. I would imagine the only way to really leverage traffic would be if your site was something like ripoffreport.

I think that's definitely true in many cases. Brands are strange - I've had one situation where a client does very well ranking for and bidding on competitive brands, because the brand-name websites are horrible (and their customer service is equally bad). Otherwise, though, if people are looking for Timex and you're not Timex or a reputable Timex dealer, you're not going to magically win the game just by being in their faces. Add on Google's changes favoring brands over the past year, and that ranking might also cost you a small fortune.

Interesting point there. I think that brands and brand keywords are ranked very differently on searches. Imagine you want to rank for Audi, you maybe at #2 but you wouldnt get any traffic at all. The intent of the searcher is to find the official website and not your's.

Some brands may also slap a court notice on you for competing with them on their own brand terms.

Another great post from SEOmoz. I think it's an all too common mistake to think your customers think like you. After all, brilliant as you are, you are an n=1 study.

So you whip your SEO to rank top for "subcutaneous irritation" whereas your customers are searching for something that will scratch their itch. A good read on the subject of getting inside your customers heads is "Waiting for your Cat to Bark" by the Eisenbergs.

Great post, thanks. Nothing more frustrating for a client than spending a big part of his marketing budget on SEO with good rankings as a result but simply no/little gain in traffic (been there at my first SEO jobs).

Another way to 'unpersonalize' your search results is to simply open up an incognito/InPrivate window in Chrome or Internet Explorer. That way it won't look at your search history.

Many years ago i was naive and believed a lot of stuff on the internet about seo. So i managed to get hooked into buying services from an individual to boost my sites ranking for seo.

He did keyword research, told me what to do on my site for it and he then handled the off page.

I got to a number 1 position for the keyword as confirmed by others and many a tool.

However I got 0 hits for it. Seriously not even 1. His response was that he cant be held to blame because search trends change so much. So I had to scratch that keyword off my site and start over. I did my own research from there out and ended up on the first page for a site that got good traffic.

So why is the bad guy in your opening line a girl? What've you got against girls, Dr. Pete, hmm?

Seriously though, this is excellent stuff. I've lost track of how many times I've seen people freak out over a rankings loss, only to realize that their traffic and conversions didn't register a single dent. Rankings /= traffic!

I'm not the best communicator in the world so I risk really digging a deeper hole for myself in trying to explain what I meant, but I'm going to give it a go.

I wasn't trying to make a joke slamming females, honest! I was trying to make a play on the words Pete used. I meant no disrespect at all. For the record, I happen to believe that woman are tougher and smarter than men (If any man doubts that, I need only introduce him to my lovely but tough wife.

Good advice, nothing worse then some one boasting they rank for a specific keyword when they don't realize they actually are signed in to google. I agree that adding the &pws=0 string to searches is a good one but also doing searches via Ad preview Tool is also advisable.

But yeah I think people do focus on the head terms way too much, people get carried away with exact match domains and what not but really the mass of the traffic is via long tail terms if you cater your SEO around long tails on a mass scale it will drive crazy amounts of traffic, added benefits are that their is not the same type of clutter with local/ads and other junk =)

In the end of the day you just have to come up with strategies to utalize all levels of SEO, in the future it is not going to just be about optizing for SEO we will be traffic optimizers who utalize all areas of the web to drive traffic to webites =)

Nobody wants to measure, but unless you're a big brand, I suspect the ROI on head terms these days is pretty lousy. Search queries just get longer and longer, head terms often are vague (you don't know what searcher intent is), and it still costs a lot of money to compete with the big brands and exact-match domains.

Couldn't agree more! If you're not optimizing for those intent oriented keyword phrases than you're working really hard to compete for lower-converting terms. Energy spent on longtail optimization get's a higher, more measurable, return.

I was just using SEOmoz traffic data to discover that our website get's traffic on 60 non-paid keyterms vs. our longtail optimized blog which gets 500! So now my attention is shifting to optimize the conversion points on our blog and make sure the terms we're winning are the ones that make sense for our business.

Even big brands do not have a very good ROI on head terms unless its associated with its own brand. Example: if someone comes to an automobile website from the search engines typing a keyword- Cars, his intent is not clear. He maybe looking for cars in general, some information on cars or even the movie called cars.

The main money lies in the long tail which account for around 70% of the searches.

I think that other avenues of traffic such as PPC would give you a good gauge on what you are looking at in terms of possible visits per month. If you are getting 100000 impressions in a month on a keyword, you can expect around 38-42% clicks if you are on number 1. Try the rank tracker tool for Pro. It works well.

Great Advise by Dr. Pete as always… for me the point one was not as important as rest of the two are as one have to be careful and should know what he can see in his search listings must be shown to other and if this is not happening then there is some problem… figure out and fix it… but yes I have seen people jumping around and yelling that they are one top rankings when they are actually not… yes illusion.

The point that attract me the most in the article is why your listings isn’t getting clicked… I think this is one of the important part… sometimes in order to attain the top rankings from the desired key phrases you stuff your titles and description (not really helpful as search engine is getting smarter day by day) but still people do that and this is what stop people clicking on your listing, Title and descriptions are visible to the visitor and what he is looking for on the internet is the results that is close to his query… your website may be the desired web page for him but the stuffed title tag and description stop you from getting clicked.

This is so real, especially when dealing with customers, they start to rank well, but they are not getting traffic, As an SEO agent we cant force users to click on their ranking, and cant guarantee this to the customer. I think it mainly goes down to the keyword selection and research process. You want to target keywords that have some decent traffic, and are achievable so that when you do rank well you have good traffic searching for those keywords, hence increasing your chances of being clicked, at the same time, the Title tags need to be attractive for users to click on them. Thanks for this insight :) enjoyed reading it.

A great way to see if your snippet sucks is exactly as illustrated above, log into Google Webmaster Toools, find low CTR phrases that rank well. You're either a result that is not relevant (can't help that other than attempt a "switch") or your snippet can be improved in which case SERP visualisation tools can be of great value. Often I spend hours crafting a single TITLE tag!

Snippet optimization is always a great way to ensure that whenever you rank on top of SERPs, you get good clickthroughs.

Snippets are an integral part of any SEO campaign. That said, there is a certain gamble in snippet potimization. Although, you control the title bit, the escription can be pulled up from anywhere (not ncessarily the meta description).

Thanks for the little reminder about spammy looking results and that nice little tool. When you've got seven great (key)words appending to your titles on every page it's really painful to think of a shorter phrase that's missing one or two of those keywords, but even if it drops you a couple places for that word, if it increases your click-through for the other words, it could be worth it. It's a complex game of trade-offs and unknowns, tinkering and testing.

These are all good things to look at if a site has been optimized for a while and just isn't seeing any changes. Keywords not matching intent definitely play a big roll in getting traffic. Sometimes it's better to focus on keywords that have less searches but that drive a more targeted user.

I see two major pitfalls for getting traffic: one is to try and rank for a major keyword as the main goal. It is much faster and reliable to rank for a large number of long tail keywords. I have a site with 127 pages, each optimized for a long tail keyword. The site started to bring in above 1000 visitors per month within 4 months, and minimal link building. Second is that Google's traffic numbers are unreliable. I have seen revisions of traffic numbers in their keyword tool by a factor of 10. You'll get better traffic data by running a PPC campaign for a week.

I agree, I wouldn't mind as much if the places results were consistently useful, but I see so many examples where the natural results are a lot more useful and relevant to users than the places pins. It's really frustrating that Google have given over such a MASSIVE area of screen real estate to localistaion.

Sorry, there are so many places personalization kicks in now, I always forget about that one. That should be equivalent (or a bit better) than "&pws=0". It seems like certain IP-based personalization still happens, even without history-based personalization, but most of that crosses over into localized results. It's really tough to draw the line where "personalization" ends.

Also keep in mind that even if you switch off as much personalization for yourself as you can, that still may not tell you what Google users see, because most of them will still have personalizations on for themselves. At least Google Webmaster Tools claims to give you the average position of the keywords you're already ranking for.

The terms ("broad", "phrase" and "exact" match) are taken from Google's tools, which are based on the PPC side. An exact match is just that - how many searches on that phrase and nothing else (no words around it, no words in between, etc.). Broad match can get really broad. It could mean added words, words in between, and even synonyms. I had a client's broad-match campaign once come up for "goat shipping" - we were not in the goat business.

hi i have this problem i think i am ranking number 4 in top 10 on a keyword that have like 30.000 search only in us and 90.000 global and i get like 3-4 visits from this keyword i have the same problems with 2 keywords my site si glam-webcams.com keywords "private cam" and "naked webcam" you can check it i am on top 10 on bouth keywords let me know if you can tell me something about it ... thanks i will wait a replay !

Nice article and a lot of insight into ways to fix the problem. While, I believe we all use keyword rankings. but its a good idea to use them only as a part of the overall SEO strategy. My main goal is always to get traffic. I have another goal too and that is absolute domination of SERPs for chosen keywords. I believe this helps in not being crowded out by ancillary things in the SERPS like videos or tweets.

Its a great point being listed high in the natural listings doesn't mean your site is going to suddenly be flooded by traffic. We have a listing on a keyword that is said to generate around 250,000 searches a month but we only get in the region of 50 clicks per day as a result. I tell customers time and time again about the importance of Adwords as a percentage of traffic but of course that does tend to be a way of getting market share as the costs per conversions normally result in customers breaking even.

This is a great article and very useful comments as well. But as for point number three, there isn't too much you can do except write a good description and keep your fingers crossed that Google will use it for the snippet. In some cases I have a description that I think would work well to draw clicks and Google pulls up a broken snippet from the page that makes little sense out of context.

This is a really good article and there are also many valid points raised in the comments. Of course even if you manage to gain high traffic volumes through your SEO efforts there's no guarantees that's going to translate into sales or enquiries.

While rankings are obviously very important - I wish more businesses would make sure they have optimised their sites for conversions before investing their money in SEO.

An owner of a small business web design/marketing company in my town recently emailed his entire email database bragging about his rankings for "difficult keywords" in an effort to sell his SEO services. He didn't realize they were all personalized. He probably shouldn't be selling SEO services anymore.

I have exacly the same problem. Rank page 1, position 2 but no
traffic at all ! My keyword has 1300 exact montly search. Shouldnt we
rely on keyword tool at all? Where are we going to get our data ? This is really annoying !

An other thing came to my mind is that I rank for Google.co.uk (The web)
but not for Google.co.uk (pages from uk). Does people care and change it to the (pages from uk), so that I dont get any clicks? Even 1 click ! So weird ! I will go crazy !

This was a very informative post. I would like to know what members of this community how they would measure keyword ranking if their business was 30% local and 70% broader US (20 cities)? Would you calculate an average of your rankings as a gut check on your overall positioning?Any insight would be appreciated.

hi guys! i'm new to this field, and it really makes my nosebleed with all the terms that you experts put in here, im originally from a medical field, suprisingly im trying to learn as much as i can to build n optimize my website under construction, it's acmodair.com. I wish i could learn all this stuff, sometimes it's too complex to take in. Thanks u guys for all the information. It helped me a lot to understand the seo and traffic blah blah blah..

hi guys i have a same problem that is in this article its seams i am ranking for a keyword my site handgunsonsale.com keyword is handguns on sale i am in top 10 but seams i dont get any visits from this keyword i used a lot of tools to se if i am really ranking and its seams i am when i look in google keyword tool this keyword get like 300.000 search on mounth ... so the big question for me is from 300.000 searcheas way i dont get any click? and i' used your advice to see if i am really ranking and seams i am ranking ..... but wheres my traffic?! ok i will wait for a replay with some sugestions !

The best article i have read that why some keywords dont deliver as much normally SEOs recommend. I think now its best that we select those keywords (if choose for the Google.com) that have the highest search volume in the world big countries like USA, UK, Canada, Australia as well as cities.

Although Google Trends tools is also good in this regard that you can get some idea by seeing their statistics that how well it is delivering traffic since it is being used.

Well written Dr. Pete. I would re-emphasize the exact match search results in the keyword tool. Using the broad seach parameters can really give some unrealistic traffic goals if you are targeting specific keyword variations, which can lead to dissappointment.

I also have been frustrated with organic results getting pushed down on a lot of local queries. We have a lot of #1 organic results that are now near the bottom of the page. I guess it might be better results for the user, but it sure doesn't help me :)

I want to respond to using words like "unrealistic" with regards to broad match, broad match is not unrealitisc at all. I want to once and for all clear up what the heck broad match actually is. BROAD MATCH IS TOTALY USELESS FOR ALL SEO PURPOSES, ok? Once it is understood that searching in google for "san diego seo" and ranking for that term, and looking at traffic, doesn't have a damn thing to do with "los angelas seo." If I rank #1 for that term, than the links and results for that OTHER TERM is completely different, EVERYTHING is different. The information is only given for PPC purposes which is all the info in the Google Keyword Tool is anyways, it is a PPC tool.

Sorry, I wanted to throw out there that I hate google. They banned my PPC Account because they don't like clickbank.com, but PPC is overrated anyways, but for testing traffic, it's the best thing out there. 99 percent of the time Google Keyword Tool's exact match is way overly inflated anyways. Did I say that I hate google? (They put false information in their keyword tool and artifically boost up numbers for their own cause and financial benefit.)

Totally agree that if the keyword research and selection is not up to the mark then it is going to have a negative effect on the rankings.

But assuming that the keyword research and targeting, on-page optimization, etc. is all done excellently and you get the rankings also but have very less traffic then it could be that the site is new and is still ranking for long tail keywords and not started ranking for head terms. Or it is ranking for low competition keywords.

When you start an SEO campaign you may not rank for all the keywords hence the traffic may be low.

What is important is that there should be a constant increase in traffic on a regular basis as that is progress.

The problem is that people have very high expectations from an SEO campaign and they think that the moment it starts ranking they will start getting millions of visits and do exponential business but that is not true.

As SEOs we have to make them expect realistic traffic and targets and if there is a positive increase in the targeted traffic every month then it denotes progress.

It is not the volume of traffic but the volume of targeted traffic which can increase only gradually over a period of time. In corelation to this it is also important to see the no. of new keywords the site is ranking with every month. As this will also ensure increase in the targeted traffic.

As many times you may have low traffic which is coming from focused keywords which may have high conversions and that is more important.

Hence, only considering traffic as a SEO quality factor can be misleading. No single analytics metrics can judge an SEO campaign's success as it depends on the corealtion with many other metrics which give meaning to the whole campaign we have to put this forward to the client by educating him on all the metrics.

I know easier said than done. But that is the main challenge in this field.

I was looking at it more from side of broad keywords and people with unrealistic expectations, but that's absolutely a valid way to look at it. When you're starting out, it's smart to go after the small victories, even if that means just a trickle of traffic. I certainly do that with new blogs - I don't obsess about traffic too much at first. I produce content, promote it, engage on related blogs, and let the build-up come. After that, I do what SEOHimanshu said and look to my analytics to see what terms draw search. Then, I take those few bricks and I start building a house out of them.

Crowded out is a problem but how about crowding yourself in. With the right content backed up by sitemaps you could have your bases covered on video, images and stand a chance in news too. These are great sources of traffic anyhow. Thanks also for confirming that the Google Keyword tool is inflating the numbers enormously. for me that is the most annoying aspect of planning ROI.. that it's pretty much impossible.

Another player in this game is that google now let's you view a site before you click on the result, and if you don't have a well designed, easy to use site from that thumbnail, you can rank all day at the top position but you're not going to get results. End of story.

I work with a client, and he is now number 4 for a very hard to get state wide keyword. His site, however, is from a dreamweaver template with cold fusion as it's main code. He wonders why if he's ranking at the top for this SUPER hard keyword why he's not a billionaire. If he re-did his site like i proposed to him then it would be entirely possible.

For over a year now, i have what i refer to as a virgin browser. Out of the 5 browsers I use, Opera is used for unbiased searches only. I never click on any result as I do with the other 4 browsers so I always know I'm getting non personalized results…

And for special scenarios theres the options to use location based proxies.

I agree that it's easy to forget some of the fundamentals. People are often excited when their listing is at the top of page one but further down the line that just isn't enough. They need conversions and to generate business from this page one visibility.

Re 'Your Results Are Crowded Out' - I think this is a big one for local results. Many local businesses that were ranking well pevious to the latest Google Places SERPs dominance, now appear so far down the page that they are virtually in places 8-10 - both visually and visitor stats wise for certain core keywords. Places optimisation / getting your places listing ranking well has become even more necessary.

Local search is a crowded place indeed. Local results, maps, images and videos too (sometimes) + paid and organic. Google is still playing around to know what exactly people want out of their SERPs. The golden triangle rul applies to every computer screen and if your website is not in that range, you are not clicked.

I love personalization! I find myself spending less time going through SERPs and more time just clicking through one of the top 5 results. As a Google user, I think it's actually a really helpful feature for the most part. I've found new and better restaurants, been able to visit some of the sites I visited a long time ago just by searching for similar queries, etc. Overall, I think it's really useful for users - however frustrating it is for our SEO (after all, with personalization, no two searchers get the exact same results).

While ranking on Google is a good start, you have to start the ball rolling by picking up the phone and making connections. This article was great because I had 5 -8 keywords ranked in the top ten and didn't even get a wrong number inquiry.

Re: keywods not deliveringvolumes promised by Google, when working without any history, (GA not installed yet) I'll use both the Google data as well as Wordtracker data. Then I do my best to marry the data in some kind of meaningful way. It's not easy when I make the presentation as I use a loose set of keyword descriptors (good, probably good really good, definitely include this, etc.) I really wish I could give solid nmbers for each proposed keyword to my clients.

Really great topic for a post Pete. I could read keyword posts all day and not tire of them.

Great advice as usual. Too many clients come to us with their own inflated keyword figures, upset that the stats don't reflect what Google "told" them to expect. Something as simple as the broad/exact match can have massive impact on expectations. They just dont get it. Google should really make those options more front and center. You have to hunt around for an explaination of what the match types mean, and that misleads clients doing DIY research.

I'm glad you touched on the hazards of using board match in keyword research tools. Instead, I prefer to come up with an exhaustive list of terms on exact match, and yes, even covering the longer tail. It does take a lot longer but I think it's worth it.

The only thing I disagree with is your example of the fold. According to the Google Analytics account of one of our client's sites (a popular, mainstream ecommerce site) the top screen resolution (21%) has a vertical of 800px and the next two (representing the next 32% of traffic) have a vertical res of just 768 pixels. Affordable widescreen laptops are largely to blame.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply my screen was representative, just illustrate the point of exactly how far organics can be pushed down these days. Of course, the "fold" isn't a static entity. I actually thought someone would argue with me in reverse (that most people use bigger monitors, since we're all techies) - funny that you argued that I didn't go far enough :)